Go slowly now, to go quickly later.

I've spent quite a lot of my "holiday" doing professional reading, and watching all those training videos that you just don't get time to do during the term (and those webinars that are held in USA timezones so you're usually in front of your class when they take place and they don't post replays!).  This is possibly why I always use the term "non-contact time" rather than 'holiday' once Christmas and New Year are done and dusted.

I've been lucky enough to come across a great website, run by Christina Tondevold, called Mathematically Minded  and she has put out 4 FREE training videos that are available until February 1st.  I've watched them all, and followed up the FREE downloads as well, and they are great! (link will be at the bottom of this post)

Now, these videos are aimed at students who are pre-school, NE, Y1 and Y2.... an area of the school that I really don't spend much time in.  So why did I dedicate around 4 hours of my non-contact time to it, I hear you ask.

The answer is simple.  These videos deal with number sense, which as Christina says many times is "not taught, but caught", and which seems to have been not caught by a great many students that I see coming through into Y5 and Y6.  You know the ones.

• They may be able to solve an algorithm, but not if the number is bigger than 100.  
• They may be able to recite a times table, but have no idea how to use that information in their work. 
• They are the ones who hate maths, who may act out during a lesson to get out of doing any work, and whose first and last strategy is to count on their fingers - even when they're subtracting 52 from 76.
• They may have been through intervention programmes such as ALiM on more than one occasion.

At least one of these students has featured in every single class I've ever taught, and I'm sure it's no different for you.  And I'm not early years trained, so my initial training as a teacher of mathematics was aimed at 7 - 12 year olds and was based on the assumption that they would already have this slightly elusive thing known as number sense.

So I watched these videos and mind-mapped the things that I felt I might need reminding of during this term.

Early number concepts

Basic number relationships

Implementation tips

  And there are three big things I must remember when I step back into the classroom next week:

1. Number sense is built through experiences, caught not taught - so giving plenty of experiences to those students who need to build their number sense is more important at the beginning than lots of teacher workshops.
2. Go slowly at first in order to go quickly later - take the necessary time for the students to have their lightbulb moment.  If you rush through those experiences at the beginning, then you still will have achieved nothing because everybody develops number sense at their own pace as they process their own experiences.  If you enforce your pace, then your students still may not have developed their number sense.  Remember you teach students not a curriculum.
3. You can guide students' experiences to lead them towards the understandings that you want them to have, but you cannot force those understandings upon them.

There are lots of tips, activities and helpful hints in these videos. I hope you can find time to enjoy them before they are taken down next week - they're well worth the investment of your time.

And I think I may be changing my laptop screensaver to a bold, vivid reminder:
GO SLOW NOW SO YOU CAN GO QUICKLY LATER.

Here's the link to the videos:
https://mathematicallyminded.leadpages.co/ns-free-video2-sp17-with-download/
Enjoy!

1 step forward, 2 steps back...

This is not nearly as negative as it sounds!  Really it's more of a reminder to me as the start of the school year looms.  I have to remember that my class this year will not be in the same headspace as the class that I just farewelled a scant 4 weeks ago.

I know that sounds like stating the obvious, but having spent some time in a school with a mixed age class that spanned 4 year groups it had become normal for me to pick up largely where I left off every January.  Changing jobs last year was different, because the whole situation was new to me, but this year I must keep reminding myself that these new children in my class are not only new to me, but new to the whole idea of self-direction.

I have kept a small number from last year and hope that they'll be the role models and leaders that the other need to have in front of them, but realistically I'm starting back at the beginning of the Maths Cafe journey once again.  And I have to keep that at the forefront of my awareness so that I don't get frustrated when self-management skills are not what I was used to at the end of last year, or some such hiccup in the smooth running of the Cafe.

This is not a criticism of the children, but just an awareness that it is all too easy for me to slip into habitual ways of thinking or behaving in class and I have to take time to build those foundations again in order to make progress through the year.

Maths Cafe will need modelling to them, slowly, clearly, methodically.  I will need to take some time to teach them the appetisers we use, to create some common understandings, games and activities that will carry us all through the year.  And I will need to remind the "old hands" that they too will need to exercise some patience as their new classmates build routines and confidence - just as they themselves did in February and March 2016.

I'm sure we'll be fine.  I'll let you know!

Term 4 experiment

So in the previous post I announced that I was going to try something new once again with my class.  As you will appreciate, Term 4 gets hectic in a primary school - especially when you have the oldest children in your class and they are moving on to other schools at the end of term.
That's why I didn't post any interim reflections, but have taken my time over this one.  Now, with Christmas and New Year safely behind me, I can sit back in my office and think about Term 4 and the maths we did together.

First of all, the children were totally excited to be able to plan their term's learning, but couldn't think how to make a start.  We talked about just doing the things that were fun, but they really shouted that idea down because, as one of them said, "I'm moving on to [intermediate school] at the end of this term.  I want to be the best me when I get to my new school."  They had really taken on board the differences between learning wants and learning needs.

I provided the tools for them to identify their own personal needs.  They all did the PAT maths paper on the second day back into Term 4, and I used the NZCER marking site to get the results analysed.  It meant an evening of hectic answer inputting by me, but it was worth it.  The next day I gave the students their individual analyses and let them have some time to really take them in and refer back to the question book to see where they had got them right and where they had slipped up.

After that, we went through as a class and collated the question numbers that students felt they needed some work on.  There were clear pockets of need, and the most interesting thing is that the students picked out the same things as I had done when I looked at the class overview.  This was great, because it showed me that they had really thought carefully about where their individual needs were rather than just putting down the number of every question they got wrong.

Once we had identified the areas that they wanted to work on, I asked them to come up with a plan for the order in which they wanted to do them.  One student suggested putting them together in related groups rather than in question number order from the PAT, so we did that together.  Then I got them to prioritise the areas.  Students worked in pairs, and came up with a plan.  Then they linked with another pair and discussed their ideas, coming up with a group plan.  Then we came back together as a class and groups put forward their ideas.  We reached consensus pretty quickly (number operations took precedence over strand work for the students; and measurement and statistics were more important to them than geometry) and soon had a working order sorted out.

After that we allocated time frames to each identified area, again working in discussion groups with students making proposals and justifying their thinking.

This was quite a long process - 2 days of discussion where little "maths teaching" was done - but I feel it was really valuable.  The students had to be aware of their weaknesses (honestly), and used a whole range of logical thinking skills to prioritise and justify their choices.  They also had to use oral language to propose and justify their ideas, they worked collaboratively to come to consensus and they had to be respectful of other students' ideas.

By the end of week 1 we had a term plan worked out that was totally down to the students (with a few helpful "have you thought about....?" prompts from me).  They bought into it completely, they were engaged in the learning and looked forward to seeing how we were progressing through their plan.  We checked it together each Monday and they were free to make amendments as we went along to take into account other things that cropped up (as they inevitably do towards the end of the school year).

All in all, I feel that this was a great example of student agency at work.  The sessions ran really smoothly, and they were all highly invested in the maths programme.  After all, they had chosen what to do rather than having it imposed upon them.  It is worth noting that I don't think it could have happened so smoothly in Term 1, because the students had to get used to making those decisions carefully for themselves, but it was a great way to finish the year for them and I think they will move forward with confidence.

In 2017 I have a largely new class.  Only 5 of my students will have been with me in 2016, but I do at least know all of the others who are moving through to me - more than I did this time last year!  It will be interesting to start the Maths Cafe journey again, and to see the role that the "old hands" take in helping new classmates to adapt.  The students I am gaining have a greater potential to need behaviour management help from their teacher than last year's class.  I can't wait to see how we go with it, but I will keep you posted.

Back again.

I've been away from Blogger for quite a while, and with good reason - I changed jobs over the summer holiday, and it takes quite a while to feel embedded in a new situation.

I've moved to a larger school  (though not huge), and now have a class of 28 Y5-6 students.  Even as a very experienced teacher, I felt a bit like a beginner all over again as I got to grips with a new culture and new expectations.  I have well and truly found my feet now, and am thoroughly enjoying the challenges that a new position brings.

One of the biggest challenges was starting the Maths Cafe journey from the beginning with a new bunch of students.  It has been interesting to see how they have taken the ideas on board since I first introduced it to them way back in January.  I was watching closely to see if the journey this time around mirrored my initial pathway to the Maths Cafe idea.

I knew that I wanted my new students to become independent and self-directed, but under-estimated how long this would take to achieve.  Three terms down the track, I can safely say that most of my students are OK with this (most of the time).  One or two are really struggling and would much prefer me to just tell them what learning they need.  One or two think they've got the system fooled and can take the very easy option every time.  But on the whole, my new class has taken to this way of learning pretty well.

In Term 1 we introduced the idea of being self-directed, and focused on Addition and Subtraction (and we sharpened some basic facts knowledge as well, as I firmly believe that automaticity in this area reduces the cognitive load and therefore the resources available to process problems and strategies).

In Term 2 we moved into Multiplication and Division, and in Term 3 we tackled fractions, ratios and proportions.

This term I will be making another leap of faith.  Normally I would construct a 4th term timetable that covered things I had not had time for during the year, or filled gaps that I felt still existed for my students.  But not this term.

I am going to spend the first week with my class constructing the outline for their learning up to the end of the school year.  I will give the students time to reflect on what they know, what they're unsure of and what they find totally bemusing.  We will talk and talk about their priorities - the majority of my class are Y6 and will be leaving to go on to an Intermediate School in December, so priorities begin to take on a more serious feel for them - and then we will plan, reflect and plan some more.

And then we will work out a scheme of work for this term, together, as equal partners.  Who knows where they feel that they need to achieve the most learning.  Maybe it will be fractions again, maybe not.

I'll keep you posted.

Fractions, decimals and percentages

Not all of my games are for the younger children.  This is a version of "lay the table" that is aimed at my Stage 6 and Stage 7 students.  It can be a simple matching game - the decimal and the fraction that go together - or it can be an ordering activity as well.  You will see that I have included some of the more common equivalent fractions as well.

I use this game before I bring out the Splat Attack fractions/decimals/percentages version.  Some of the students who are confident with this are now timing each other to see how quickly they can pair the cutlery up properly, and of course they have to check that the other person is correct.
I have housed the cutlery in a plastic takeaway container with a lid, so it can be stored on a shelf easily, and because all the pieces were donated and recycled it is easy to replace any that are lost or broken.

Place value activity

Place value is one of the things that many children struggle with in maths.  I found that when my students were moving between Stage 5 and Stage 6 they got confused with the bigger numbers, particularly when it came to adding them up.
I used the place value houses frequently, and students got good at reading big numbers and writing big numbers, but applying this to a strategy was a whole new ball-game for those who were not secure.

I found the answer in an unusual place - coloured plastic shot-glasses!

The shot-glasses have digits on, and the correct number of beads in them.

Use the colours to reinforce the place value - hundreds are orange regardless of which house they're in.

The students start by setting up each number from their sum (one near the top of the house, and the other near the bottom of the house) so that all they're concentrating on at first is reading and interpreting the digits.

Then they tip the beads out - keeping them in the correct column in the place value house.  Move the shot-glasses out of the way and put the beads together.

This is where the next discussion takes place, especially if there are more than 9 beads in a column.

The last step is to read the new number, and then to write it down.

Planning Maths Cafe

I have had a few queries about how I track students and their participation in the Dish of the Day during a cycle of learning.
This is the format I use to see who has ordered which Dish of the day, the days that I have taught each one and some ongoing formative assessments about how the children have performed during the lesson.

The children are named down the left hand side (not their real names here, I hasten to add!), and those working below (orange) or well below (red) are highlighted so I am always aware of the target students school-wide.  Yellow indicates that they have ordered a Dish of the Day, and they get / if they attended but really didn't understand it, 2 sides of a triangle if they are on the way, and a full triangle if they have cracked it.  @ indicates an absence from a teaching time.  More than one assessment might reflect more than one teaching time, or it might be an assessment of doggy bag work to see how the ideas have stuck.

I hope this is helpful - as always, please email me or leave a comment if there's something I can do to clarify what's going on.